Posted on 12/29/2007 9:21:54 PM PST by neverdem
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a potential independent candidate for president, has scheduled a meeting next week with a dozen leading Democrats and Republicans, who will join him in challenging the major-party contenders to spell out their plans for forming a "government of national unity" to end the gridlock in Washington.
Those who will be at the Jan. 7 session at the University of Oklahoma say that if the likely nominees of the two parties do not pledge to "go beyond tokenism" in building an administration that seeks national consensus, they will be prepared to back Bloomberg or someone else in a third-party campaign for president.
Conveners of the meeting include such prominent Democrats as former senators Sam Nunn (Ga.), Charles S. Robb (Va.) and David L. Boren (Okla.), and former presidential candidate Gary Hart. Republican organizers include Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), former party chairman Bill Brock, former senator John Danforth (Mo.) and former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman.
Boren, who will host the meeting at the university, where he is president, said: "It is not a gathering to urge any one person to run for president or to say there necessarily ought to be an independent option. But if we don't see a refocusing of the campaign on a bipartisan approach, I would feel I would want to encourage an independent candidacy."
The list of acceptances suggests that the group could muster the financial and political firepower to make the threat of such a candidacy real. Others who have indicated that they plan to attend the one-day session include William S. Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine and defense secretary in the Clinton administration; Alan Dixon, a former Democratic senator from Illinois; Bob Graham, a former Democratic senator from Florida; Jim Leach, a former Republican congressman...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“The Democratic and Republican Parties have become merely opposite wings of the same bird”
Good description.
Why are they complaining about gridlock? It’s not as if the country wants the same things done by our representatives. This idiotic “gridlock” term presupposes that the country is united in our desires for legislative solutions, and it’s pretty obvious that there are some very divisive major issues.
I’m not talking about how they campaign, I am talking about how they govern. The parties talk different talks, but they walk a very similar walk.
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a potential independent candidate for president, has scheduled a meeting next week with a dozen leading Democrats and Republicans, who will join him in challenging the major-party contenders to spell out their plans for forming a "government of national unity" to end the gridlock in Washington.Now there's a lousy idea. You want unity? Move to a country where there's a no choice about anything, or (failing that) to a country which has a parliamentary system and therefore is a single party state in all but name. It's not unity, it just ensures that those out of power have no say in anything.
When Republicans act like Democrats, they lose.
When Democrats act like Republicans, they win.
Isn’t it amazing how few Republicans have figured that out?
When Democrats act like Republicans, they win.
Isnt it amazing how few Republicans have figured that out?
Power corrupts. Hopefully, the results from 2006 will make the GOP wake up.
Are you talking about Presidents or Congress? I can't imagine that anyone would think the Bush Admin. and the clintoon admin. were anything alike. I haven't liked everything Bush has done, but I could list an awful lot of differences between those admins - foreign policy, taxes, and nanny state programs being three key ones.
As for Congress, both parties are far too fond of earmarks (and the voters in both parties reward them for it), and both parties are castigated by the voters if they work with a President of the opposite party (the voters demand that they don't)
In short, I don't see the similarities in the Executive branch, and it seems to me that Congress is doing what they've been elected to do. If voters didn't like it, the earmark champions would be defeated and so would the ones who didn't try to work with the President. But those are the ones who win re-election repeatedly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.